Various high power electronic components are often housed within an enclosure.
Due to their high power consumption, these electronic components generate heat, which if let unabated, can quickly lead to component failure and/or system shutdown.
To cool the electronic components, a cooling system is integrated within the enclosure. A typical cooling system includes a fan which generates a recirculating airflow over the electronic components. The airflow absorbs heat from, and cools, the electronic components. A fluidic circuit recirculates fluid through a heat exchanger positioned within the airflow, cooling the heated air. The heated fluid exiting the heat exchanger can be directed to, and cooled at, a location external to the enclosure.
Because of the very high power dissipation in the enclosure, any failure in the cooling system causes an instantaneous temperature rise within the enclosure. As a result, a system shutdown or failure may occur without sufficient time for an orderly shutdown. Consequently, critical data that is not stored in memory is often lost. This is particularly relevant in systems that handle large amount of data, and thus require several minutes for storage of data prior to shutdown.